SBIR Phase I: Slowing the Spread of COVID-19: Development of Persistent Antimicrobial Compositions to Prevent Cross-Contamination via Hands and Gloves

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research SBIR project will be to transform the ability to control cross-contamination by pathogens via hands and gloves in the healthcare and food sectors and strengthen the nation’s response to the COVID-19 crisis by limiting its spread. This innovation will also reduce the healthcare-acquired infections from other pathogens that cause 1.7 million illnesses, 98,000 deaths and an estimated $45 billion annually in direct costs to US hospitals.

Cross-contamination via hands and gloves is a leading cause of spread of pathogens and resulting infections. Handwashing and hand sanitizers provide periodic sanitation, however, cross-contamination via hands between periodic handwashing or sanitizing is an inherent risk. Likewise, donning fresh gloves helps ensure the gloves used are sanitary, but they become contaminated during use.

Innovations described in this proposal provide continuous sanitation for hands between handwashing and between changes of gloves. Maintaining persistent antimicrobial activity for an extended period on hands and gloves of workers will reduce transmission of pathogens including SARS CoV-2. This research aims to develop cell-based antimicrobial compositions with diverse class of antimicrobials to coat both biotic surfaces (hands) and abiotic surfaces (gloves) for persistent antimicrobial activity.

This SBIR Phase I project proposes to address the technical challenges in maintaining persistent antimicrobial activity on both biotic and abiotic surfaces against viral and bacterial targets including SARS CoV-2. The technical challenges include: (a) ability of antimicrobial compositions to persist on biotic and abiotic surfaces in the presence of organic content including proteins, lipids and cells as well as physical factors including sweat and mechanical forces; (b) achieving rapid inactivation of contaminating pathogens on complex surfaces such as hands and gloves; and (c) ensuring the biocompatibility of the compositions and removal with simple washing steps.

To address these challenges this proposed research aims to develop innovations in the following technical areas: (a) discovery of cellular compositions and process engineering to stabilize diverse antimicrobials and maintain rapid inactivation of pathogens (b) development of nature inspired designs for retaining cell-based antimicrobial compositions on skin surfaces to maintain persistent antimicrobial activity (c) engineering polymer compositions to retain cell-based compositions on abiotic surfaces and (d) engineer cellular compositions to achieve rapid inactivation of these pathogens. This may be achieved based on engineering affinity of the carrier compositions for pathogens as well as the release rate of antimicrobials from cell-based carriers.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.